About writing, literature, and life, and where they intersect.

Pretty Good for a Boy

A while ago, I wrote about an example of rampant sexism in SF and how I felt about it. As it happens, an article was pointed out to me today, and in fairness, I feel this point of view should be disseminated.

Feel free to discuss amongst yourselves.

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Hmm. I definitely work in a good ol’ boy industrial plant but I’m not sure I face as much sexism as one would think. It’s hard to discern what is sexism and what is ageism, as I am by FAR the youngest person here and I think any assumption of incompetence comes more from that. I do get talked over/ignored/rejected all the time, but that experience isn’t really unique to me. There is a general “anti-lab” sentiment throughout the plant, so it’s not like the male chemists or lab techs fare any better in getting taken seriously by the production department.

We only have three engineers, and two of them are women. I know one of our female engineers is having a hard time adjusting because her last job was very prim and proper, everyone respected hierarchy, etc, and she’s not sure how to handle how blaise/unprofessional/dismissive people are allowed to be here (we do not really have HR).

I would say the biggest difference between being a woman here and being a man is the sexual harassment. Me and several other women have dealt with this from some of the middle-aged men who have been here for 30 years. Additionally, there are no women in management, or female operators. I think women definitely walk through life differently than men, but we in STEM fields face pretty much the same hurdles women in any fields deal with – difficulty getting into management, harassment, too much focus on our appearance, etc. I think graduate school/academia is probably harder on women from a purely technical standpoint than industry is.